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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25180516">Ouroboros</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dantalionax/pseuds/Dantalionax'>Dantalionax</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Vampyr (Video Game)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, Despair, Gen, Hope, Memories</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-07-10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-07-10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 07:19:56</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,120</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25180516</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dantalionax/pseuds/Dantalionax</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>A bad day at the hospital sends Jonathan fleeing the scene, directly down memory lane.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>17</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Ouroboros</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>He couldn't take it. Whatever the consequences would be, Jonathan Reid had fled from the hospital mid-shift. He had tests to run, rounds to make, patients to see and procedures to perform. The guilt gnawed at him like a serpent in his belly, writhing and biting; A foul mirror for the temptation and hunger nipping at his soul. The only eternal companion he had, walking through un-life.</p><p>Rats had given him relief, at first. They still provided nutrition, but with no satiety to it. The initial softening came only from his lingering hope that his thirst for blood could be filled with anything. He knew, perhaps better than any man in London, how to define blood. A fluid used by animals to transfer nutrients and oxygen around the body and remove waste products. There was no reason the blood of a rat would differ much in form or function from that of a man and yet...it did. </p><p>For a time, this mystery sustained him. He was still as famished as ever, but the mental stimulation relegated it to a slight irritation, a hungry little mosquito that occasionally flitted by his ear instead of the roaring force of nature in his mind. Through a whorl of activity that stretched from nights into weeks, through rat after rat after rat... Jonathan found nothing. In fact, his findings leaned towards the opposite conclusion. Rat could be transfused into rat, sometimes with no ill effect, sometimes with deadly results, and more puzzlingly successfully but only once. These despicable little creatures harbored some approximation of blood groups like he had found in mankind with his mentor all those years ago. </p><p>Still, he knew better than to indulge deeper experimentation. Rat could not be successfully transfused into a human, volume issues aside. Rationally he knew there was some physical difference, even if the specifics of it had eluded him. Instinctively, their blood did not respond to his calls. Human blood, treated, jarred, and cooled in the icebox would still clot and flow at his command. His own blood, or whatever foulness that flowed in his veins was a far more willing material. The five-odd liters in a living human...that felt like another medium entirely. It sang to him, resonating his bones in a heavenly howl that he never could fully make out. It beckoned him closer, and closer, the wretched siren even put those monstrous fangs in his jaw...Throbbing, aching, keening for just one...more...taste!</p><p>This was what left Dr. Reid with no recourse but to flee. A man had staggered into the hospital, gasping for air, clutching at his throat. Jonathan had looked like the very angel of mercy to him, with his pristine white coat and shining eyes. A beacon of salvation and hope that spurred him on with the last burst of energy he didn't know he still had...because once he reached that man, he would be safe.</p><p>Jonathan's senses gave him a far more perverted view of the event. One moment he was going about his rounds, from ward to ward, the next, the world had drained of all color save for red and a sudden great weight sent him tumbling down to the floor. The impact, the sharp crack inside his own skull gave him an instant of clear vision. The man was reaching towards him, hand raking the air with a bony claw.</p><p>Dr. Reid thought he mouthed, "Help me", in that half-blink of time. For a moment Reid even intended to comply. Before the man slackened and choked, before a single streak of spittle and living blood trailed out his mouth. Before Reid remembered what he was and fell into the simple view of red and not-reds, and yielded to the void lurking where he should have a soul. </p><p>He pounced, covering the distance in a whorl of smoke. Fangs seared through his jaw bone. It should be painful, it would be painful but there was only room for the hunger now. The man's lungs were bright red, opaque and shining in his vision - full of blood, soaked through, rippling slightly with the last shuddering heartbeats - Reid's hands had found fistfuls of the man's dingy shirt and brought his neck closer to the savage jaws slavering above him... Sister always said do not waste...</p><p>
  <em>Sister... Oh, dear Mary</em>
</p><p>
  <em>No! Never again! </em>
</p><p>Reid flung himself away, tumbling and twisting as sure as he'd been kicked by a cart horse. He felt the threads of his instincts tear away, pulling out of his skin like physical silk sutures would. Nothing painful, but the sensation of fibers slithering out from within him was unsettling. A violation, as it was. That's what it was. Jonathan Reid had succeeded in violating his own nature again, but felt no victory from it. All there was, was the bitter memory of his sister's last moments, peppered with the throbbing ache in his mouth such that he'd never truly forget the why.</p><p>The exchange had taken all of a few seconds at most; the man was dead, that much was certain. There was a silhouette of black, now being swamped by the various shapes of nurses and his colleagues still infused with their own portions of red life. Jonathan, still sprawled on the floor, only able to observe.</p><p>The ten feet of empty space neatly quarantined him from his fellows. It was not that the man had died that isolated Reid so. There was nothing he could have done to change that. It was the stink of betrayal that dragged him towards oblivion, neatly bisecting from the other, truer adherents of Hippocrates and Aesculapius. Jonathan Reid, who had dared call himself doctor, was scarcely more than the wolf in sheep's clothing. This now departed soul had come to him seeking salvation and Jonathan had made no attempt to provide it. He had failed, and so... He had fled.</p><hr/><p>Jonathan's bedroom at his childhood home offered very little solace for him tonight. If anything, it intensified the dread and separation. The building was saturated with so many memories he would frequently get lost in them and winnow away hours trying to relive happier times. Tonight, he had even become an exile to his own memories, observing himself and his sister as children trying to peek down the stairs on Christmas day, gazing at his mother's room across the hall where she had scolded him for spilling ink on the oriental rug. From the bed, he watched himself hunched at the desk, writing the essay that would see him admitted to medical school. Another phantom of his humanity was in the middle of the room, fixing Clarence's tie on his wedding day.</p><p>It was not enough that he had eternity to endure with this affliction, it was hungry for his halcyon days as well. While he no longer had the capacity to shed tears over his plight he could still wonder...what had he done? Worse men than he were allowed to live out unfettered human lives. Myrddin had chosen him for a purpose, one he had managed to fulfill. The blood of hate was no longer a threat. The Red Queen was slumbering peacefully. There had been no further interference or communication from either of them, leaving Jonathan entirely alone. </p><p>He remembered a patient, from his time in France. Louis? Henri? The name had faded away into the years. Henri was some sort of a banker that had spent most of his life overseas in Saigon, having returned to his home village shortly before war broke out. Verbal communication had gotten Jonathan nowhere. Jonathan's command of the French language was rudimentary at best, and Henri's it seemed was not much better. On the first meeting, there appeared nothing wrong with the man, and Jonathan had soldiers to attend to. He hurried him out of the field hospital.</p><p>Jonathan was a new doctor then but had since seen the same pattern. Each time afterwards, Henri returned with a new injury, obvious enough that a child could diagnose what it is but with no simple origin. Fingers dislocated, one at a time, lacerations that looked inflicted by a kitchen knife... Each time, Jonathan would administer pain relief, then treat the injury. What else was he supposed to do? He did catch on, eventually. The dosages alone were one clue, but the way the man looked at the syringe finally clinched it. It was the type of hungry gaze, tinged with compulsion and the kind of raw lust Jonathan had not seen outside of a brothel. Relief, and an almost worshipful stare would wash it away as he pressed the plunger down. It was plain and simple, the man was an addict, but one that would arrive howling in genuine pain. It was not in Jonathan, ethically or morally, to turn anyone away in that condition. As much as he bristled at being used, the injuries Henri had likely self-inflicted were severe enough he always felt as if there was no other humane option.</p><p>There did come a time, in a winter blockade, that forced Jonathan's hand. The field hospital had been ran low, or out of everything, the coveted morphine among them. So when Henri arrived, wincing and hobbling with an obviously out-of-place shoulder, mustering the same sheepish smile when he saw Jonathan...all Jonathan had was empty palms and a mumbled "Ne Plus" that eventually settled in. The look of horror and betrayal on his face was most of what remained in Jonathan's memory the clearest. Henri turned and ran, and that was the last Jonathan ever saw of him. </p><p>Later, he found out Henri had simply returned home and shot himself. Jonathan had not understood then, but now... Oh, he did now. </p><p>Jonathan remembered being seized by night-time hunger in childhood. Then, he would creep out of his bedroom, perhaps recruiting his sister as father and Avery could never bear punishing both of them at once. The purloined slices of bread and marmalade they would share in the kitchen were always something special. The same bread that was stale and over-dense at supper became pillowy and flavorful. The marmalade, previously cloying and sweet tasted bright and fresh, little amber gems studded with curls of zest that glittered in the lamplight. It would always see them returning to their beds with full bellies and warmed hearts.</p><p>Nothing in his life before had been eternal and this reliable tradition only went so long. Later on he had found himself kept awake long into the night, broiled in a deep sense of wrongness that had pervaded the house since sundown when his father had failed to materialize in time for dinner. Mother had stayed in a terse silence, leaving Jonathan to his own thoughts. There were a thousand rational, mundane things that could have delayed his father. Try as he might, he couldn't convince himself that it was just a cracked wheel or a lame horse. Something had changed.</p><p>When he went down to the kitchen that night, his sister was already there. Jonathan tried their bread and jam trick only to discover the soul warming midnight snack had turned into ashes and paste in his mouth. Then, he knew the truth in his soul... His father would not be coming back. </p><p>In vain, he had hoped that night would be the worst violation he would feel in his life. When he woke in that mass grave in Southwark, that same sensation welcomed him back to consciousness. When he realized the truth of what he was, it pervaded him fully. Now and into eternity, he was a walking violation of the laws of nature. Like his father, Jonathan would not be coming back.</p><p>He drifted off into what passed for sleep at last, listening to a springtime rain on his roof as it cleaned away the night's soot and grime.</p><hr/><p>The next evening, Jonathan Reid woke to his alarm. He swiped across the screen to silence it, clipped his ID to his shirt pocket, looped a mask over his face and strode out his door to meet a rideshare.</p><p>Perhaps one night, he would stand tall on his roof after work and meet a last sunrise, finally giving that piece of granite in the family plot some truth. He was and forever will be a monster, one with deception woven deep into its very nature...and could neither outrun his hunger nor his terrible memories forever. For now, Dr. Jonathan Reid III, great-grandson of the doctor whose name and face he shared was still running.</p><p><br/>Yes, he was a monster, but the world still needed him. It would seem eternity was at least one more day.</p>
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